all i have needed: April 2013

Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Invite-A-Friend and other going ons

It's been crazy, but hopefully it's almost over. I'll go into more detail about the wedding later. I don't have any pictures yet, so I'm waiting for those to do a post. Our house is pretty much a disaster since our stuff is everywhere but the basement. I think today some guys are coming to stretch the carpet we are keeping and stuff like that. Some of our doors won't even shut in the basement because of swelling. I will be so glad when I am back in my room and can actually sleep on a real bed. This weekend I was in Oakville for the first time in 9 months. I use to go all the time last year. It was such a great weekend. I had to work on Saturday, so my carload left at 1:30. We were the last of 3 carloads from Princeville that went. I'm pretty sure overwhelmed some people. It was invite-a-friend, but there were some Princeville girls who went to visit Kory and Brooke. I drove with Larissa Feucht and Tory Herrmann. I was pretty proud of myself when I made it there without a GPS. I even could drive to Brooke and Kory's in town! We sat around and talked for a while and then those who were going to the invite left. I was invited by Erika Massner. I actually knew her before she started repenting. I was converted, but she wasn't and I stayed there the past 2 years for the Steiner Reunion. I really like there house a lot. They have like 30 or more stuffed animals in their family room. Not like plush stuffed animals, like animals they shot. They have a rattlesnake, opossum, raccoons, a coyote, and all other kinds. They have a huge lake/pond. It's so awesome. Super secluded, although Erika told me that their neighbors have a small zoo behind their house. How cool is that? She also invited her cousin Kendra Schmidgall from Morris. We are all the same age. She also is like 6'1". Yeah. Erika pretty much invited the tallest and shortest girls. Kendra literally topped quite a few of the men. She was so awesome! I seriously had such a great weekend. Probably also because I knew most everyone there. Sunday we went to the new church. It was a first for me, and it was kind of weird feeling. It almost didn't really feel like Oakville. It is a nice church though. Erika got announced for peace Sunday, so I will probably be there again in June. Thankfully another one of my friends from there is getting baptized the same weekend so I don't have to go out twice. Not that I would really mind, but I am doing a lot of traveling this year. One thing I'm not very good at is driving home from Oakville. Usually it's night time, so everything looks different and I can't get back the way I came. I usually have to use the GPS, but not this time:) I was especially proud of myself on the way home. Tory Herrmann road home with me, and we had some nice talks. Last night I went to the nursing home. We had an awesome turn out, and I really enjoyed singing more than normal last night. After that, I went to the singing after the bible study at ICC with Katie Schick and Amber. Afterwards we stopped at McDonald's and got 3 waters and 3 strawberry lemonade things. I'm pretty sure they thought we were weird, but we were really thirsty. It probably also doesn't help when Amber starts chatting with the drive-thru person. We had some really awesome talks, just talking about what we were struggling with and things that bother us. I just love those talks. I am so blessed to have the girls from Princeville and of course those from other churches also. I only have a few weeks left of school, and you have no idea how excited I am for it to be done with. I have been searching for plane tickets for Ixtlan, Mexico where I will be going in July with 4 other girls. I am super excited for that. I am also in charge of buying plane tickets for the invite to Oregon over Labor Day weekend. I am excited to go there too, since I have never been there. Lately, I feel like life is really speeding up. It's kind of scary how fast time flies, but we know we have an unchanging God, and that is so comforting! Hope you are all having a good week and going outside for at least a couple of minutes.

Thursday, April 18, 2013

Flooded

I'm not sure why, but April has been a very strange month. I have seen lots of strange this, and encountered lots of strange things. Don't ask me why. I have no answer. Strange things since yesterday. As I was on my way to school, I happened to look over into a grassy area and there were three turkeys. In the middle of Peoria. Right by all the traffic. They looked out of place. I wondered if I look like that sometimes. I probably do. I got my dress for the wedding on Sunday. Actually on Sunday I was in Kansas City for an invite. It was completely last minute. Like 10:30 p.m. Friday night last minute. We left at 9:30 a.m. on Saturday. It was a pretty good invite. It was small, but I'm sure the Kansas City congregation appreciated the extra visitors. So anyways, I got my dress. I tried it on. It doesn't fit right. No one believed me, so I took it to church last night and tried it on for Ashley and Angie. They said it won't work. It doesn't look like the other bridesmaids. Great. Two days before pictures. Luckily my mom called the lady who made it and she is able to hopefully fix it tonight after work. Hopefully it all works out well. Yesterday night right when we were closing at work, it was super stormy. The other teller was already in the entry way and I was doing last minute closing procedures. All of a sudden there was a big flash of lightening and something inside got electrocuted. I don't know what it was, but it did make me jump a little. Ok, it made be jump a lot. Everything seemed fine, and I haven't heard anything of it so it must be fine. So most of you know it is raining here. Like a lot. Like I don't think I have every seen this much rain before. So at 11:30 last night, I was getting ready for bed, and I was tired and just finished a big project. Cassie comes into my room and says, "My carpet is wet." Great. Mine was a bit wet in a corner too. I woke up at 2:00 in the morning and hear some sort of scrubbing. I get down from by bunk bed and step into my floor. Water pools around my feet. Disgusting. So our basement is flooded. In the 8 years since we built and moved into the house, we have NEVER had this problem. This morning I walked up stairs and Dad had his swim shoes at the top of the stairs. He even stayed home from work Both Heartland and Princeville were closed today. I guess they call it a rain day. Of course I am in school. All my family is home except me. I guess that's what happens when you grow up. Oh well. I had a big presentation today in one of my child development classes, so I was thankful it didn't get canceled. Me and my partner have been working on it for a couple of weeks, and we were kind of nervous about it. Our teacher does not give a lot of instruction, so we didn't know exactly what she expected. We were the first group to go, and we asked to go first that way our teacher wouldn't have anyone to judge us off of. The other girl that went today was very confident. My partner asked her if she was ready for the presentation and she said, "Yep, I have everything right here." It wasn't a competition or anything. We did really well, and made ours super creative, which is a plus for a child development teacher. She was very impressed. We were so happy, because we didn't know how well we would do. Anyways, I'm so glad that is off my shoulders and now I have a stressful weekend ahead of me:) It's still raining here, but it's not too bad. I still like rain better than snow, even if it is soaking all our carpet downstairs. Hope you all are having a great day/week. May you let the light of Jesus shine through you even when it's raining!

Friday, April 12, 2013

Things I Have Encountered This Last Week

1) A woman waving her hands at the railroad track, while parked in the middle of the road. I was trying to pass. Apparently, she was trying to get the attention of some railroad workers to tell them the railroad needed fixing.
2) An intersection with all four stop lights blinking crazily. I just went. Nobody knew who's turn it was to go.
3) Worms. Disgusting worms. It was rainy the past couple of days. Apparently the ICC sidewalks are a safe haven for worms. I was trying to walk like a normal person while avoiding stepping on any worms. I don't think I really looked normal.
4) A very large cinnamon roll. I got it at work. It was delicious. And one of my co-workers said that every time he sees me I am eating. whoops! I can't help it when they put delicious cinnamon rolls in the break room.
5) A grocery cart. I went grocery shopping for mom last Thursday. Mostly because I need ingredients for Ashley's Personal Shower and I didn't want to wait for Mom to go shopping. I took Tessa along. It went pretty well. I got multiple "It looks like you have your little helper today". Yes indeed I do. Although she is not my child, and if by hanging on to the end of the cart and making it very difficult to turn, you mean help. Then yes, she was helping.
6) Nerdy Attire. Ashley's Personal Shower theme was accounting, so we dressed up as nerds. It was cute:) It was a fun time. Everyone had their own cubicle made out of a tri-fold poster board cut in half. We put sticky notes all over it. The cup was a mug and the place-mat was a ledger pad. We also put nerds and smarties on the table. I'd say we did a pretty good job. I was in charge of the desert. I brought all the ingredients for coldstone. It was good, delicious, yummy, mouth-watering. Ok you get the idea.
7) A cute joke. I told it to my mom, and I heard my dad laughing in the office. Apparently he heard too. My sisters didn't think it was quite as funny as I did. Where is there sense of humor?
What did the Koala say when he was told he wasn't a bear? What do you mean I'm not a bear? I have all the Koalafications.

And that is all folks. Of course I encountered other things this week, but I don't want to bore you to death. Hope you all have been enjoying this week, even though it is kind of rainy and cold.

Friday, April 5, 2013

Texas 2013

So we went to Texas. It was nice and warm:) We left last Thursday and flew from Moline, IL to Dallas Fort Worth then to San Antonio. For most of our family, this was a first. When we took off in our first plane, Tessa was a bit surprised I think. When the plane started getting off the ground she was like woo, Woo, WOO. The people around us may have snickered a bit. When we arrived to Dallas Fort Worth we were overwhelmed. That place is HUGE! We didn't know our way around so we had to sprint to the nearest train to take us to gate. We got there just in time though. I'm not sure what time we arrived in San Antonio, but we had to get our rental vehicle also, so we didn't get to our hotel until around 11:00 I think. Maybe later, I forget. We got to sleep in a little. We at breakfast at Jim's, which was delicious. Then we headed to the Riverwalk for a while. It was beautiful. Probably one of my favorite parts of the trip. On Saturday we went to Sea World. It was pretty hot that day, but we had fun. I loved the shows, and the rides were pretty great also. We had to wait in line as the day got longer. Some were worth the wait, some not so much. We left at around 5. We ran into Craig and Terri Martin and their family quite bit there too. Sunday took us to Bastop Apostolic Christian Church. It was nice. Half the church was made up of people from Princeville. Maybe not quite that much:) We went home and took a nap and then went out to eat at Olive Garden, which was delicious. I split a meal with Cassie, and I'm pretty sure they gave us each a full meal, but only charged us for one. How nice:) I think our family must be quite charming or something. On Monday, we went to Corpus Chrisit. We spent the day at the beach, and it was super fun. I think all of us agreed that that was one of the best days. We collected a huge bucket of sea shells and then threw them back into the sand and watched them bury down into the sand. There were lots of seagulls around, and Dad thought it would be funny to get out the snacks. They flocked around us, and we were screaming and running. I wonder when my Dad will actually grow up. It sure is taking awhile. I guess he probably never will, and it's probably a good thing we never had a brother either. On Tuesday, we met the Martin's at Fort Sam. Both of my Grandpa's were stationed there as well as both of the Martin's fathers. It was sort of interesting. I guess for myself I thought it was neat, because we have the annual Fort Sam Reunions, and I never really knew where it was. They had this Quadrangle which I don't even know what it was except that it had animals in it. We walked in and there were Peacocks and ducks and other birds all around. There were also deer. The birds freaked me out, because they would just come right up to us looking for food. I haven't exactly had good experiences with chickens, so most birds freak me out a bit. The deer just ran away from us. We also went to the Riverwalk again, and just shopped around. We also got ice cream.:) I was being a bit grumpy and everyone was like Lynelle needs her ice cream. They know me well. On Wednesday, we went to the San Antonio Zoo. It was fun, until it started pouring. Then we took shelter in the Reptile House. Can't you just picture the Berchtold family in a Reptile House? After that, we went to the North Star Mall, which is HUGE. It was pretty fun though. We ate an early supper at Chipolte, which was a new experience to all my family members except me. It was good. Then we went headed home. It was a pretty short flight, and we got home at around 11:30. I think I am caught up with my sleep now. Here are some pictures, and I apologize for them being out of order.